Considering the turmoil in the mobile industry due to Apple sort-of finally deprecating UDIDs, the last thing it needed was a spat between two leading contenders for a replacement.
However, that's what's happened between Appsfire, which is promoting OpenUDID, and Crashlytics and its SecureUDID.
A messy business
The bust up is both technical and personal, with one of Crashlytics' team originally involved in the development of OpenUDID.
However, it decided to take a different approach.
"OpenUDID is predicated on having a global identifier for the device - basically the same as the now-deprecated Apple UDID," it explains in its blog post about how it came up with SecureUDID.
It says this was a new project, although one which is compatible with OpenUDID. However, it provides developers with the ability to track devices across all its apps without there being a global ID - the main privacy concern.
Stabbed in the back?
Of course, this didn't go down well with Appsfire.
Its founder Ouriel Ohayon hit back, saying Crashlytics had only been a minor player in the OpenUDID project, while also casting doubt on its claim that SecureUDID was a from-the-ground-up new project.
Perhaps more significant, however, Ohayon says that SecureUDID isn't a solution that will work for mobile advertisers because the ID is only available on a per developer basis.
Still, both open source projects may find common purpose; at least they both agree that the most popular current UDID replacement - MAC address - is the wrong answer.
"We're happy to see this SecureUDID initiative (after all, OpenUDID needs to be perfected)," Ohayon ends, in a conciliatory manner.
"But we're disappointed to see how this was brought about and promoted and felt compelled to inform those interested of the situation (many, trust us!)."
[Sources: Appsfire / Crashlytics]
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Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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